CONVICTED BY SUSPICION -- WHY SCOTT PETERSON MAY BE INNOCENT

by J. Neil Schulman, guest contributor.

[November 30, 2004]

[HollywoodInvestigator.com] Scott Peterson may or may not have murdered his wife, Laci, and their unborn child. But the Redwood City, California trial that has just convicted Peterson of murdering Laci with premeditation was a kangaroo court in which none of the elements necessary to achieve a murder conviction were offered, much less proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

The first element that needs to be proved in any murder trial is that a murder has occurred. There was never a determination by any California medical examiner that the cause of Laci Petersons death was homicide. No medical examiner was able to determine the cause of Laci Peterson's death, nor even prove to a medical certainty in what week beyond her disappearance on Christmas Eve that she died.

A thorough examination of the residence where Scott and Laci Peterson lived together, by teams of detectives and forensic experts, uncovered no evidence whatsoever that a crime had occurred there.

No crime scene was ever found.

No forensic evidence was found in the Petersons motor vehicles lending any foundation to the suspicion that she had ever been transported in one of them -- alive or dead -- to the place where, months later, her body was found.

No weapon was ever produced with any evidence that it had been used to cause Laci Petersons death.

No witness was produced who had seen or heard Scott Peterson argue with Laci near the time of her disappearance, much less any witness who had seen Scott Peterson fight with his wife or kill her.

The only forensic evidence produced in court that even presumptively linked Scott Peterson with the death of his wife was a strand of hair that DNA analysis showed to be Laci's, in a pliers found in Scott Petersons fishing boat. A police detective interviewed a witness who had seen Laci in the boat warehouse where Scott stored that boat. Even in the absence of this witness statement to a police detective, the rules of forensic transference indicate that transference of trace evidence between a husband and wife who lived together is common, and not indicative of foul play.

No witness ever saw Laci in that fishing boat, nor did any witness ever testify to seeing Scott Peterson bringing a corpse-sized parcel onto his fishing boat. Thus, the fishing boat never should have been allowed into evidence, nor should prosecution speculation into his dumping her body using that boat have been permitted.

Nor was any evidence offered in court showing that Scott Peterson had engaged in any overt activities in planning of a murder. He was not observed buying, or even shopping for, weapons or poison. Police detectives found no records in his computer logs that he was spending time researching methods of murder. No evidence was offered that he ever considered hiring someone to kill her.

No evidence was offered in court indicating that Scott Peterson had any reasonable motive for murdering his wife, such as monetary gain, or to protect great marital assets that hed lose as an adulterer in a divorce in California, a no-fault community-property state, or because Scott had some basis to believe he had been cuckolded.

So in a case without an MEs finding of homicide or a known time of death;

without a single witness to a crime having occurred;

without a crime scene;

without a murder weapon;

without any indisputable forensic evidence linking the defendant husband to his wifes death;

without an obvious motive;

without the prosecution presenting conclusive direct or circumstantial evidence overcoming every single exculpatory scenario by which Laci Peterson might have otherwise come to her death;

in summation, without the prosecution demonstrating that Scott Peterson and only Scott Peterson had the means and opportunity to murder his wife and transport her alive or dead to the San Francisco Bay in which her body was found ... how is it possible that Scott Peterson has just been convicted of a premeditated murder with special circumstances warranting the death penalty?

It comes down to this: Scott Peterson was having an adulterous affair at the time of his wifes disappearance, and Scott Peterson is a cad and a bounder.

Scott Peterson repeatedly lied to everyone around him  including his new mistress  to further the pursuit of this affair. This pattern of lying was established by audio tapes of his phone conversations with his mistress that were played in court. But these tapes were played before the jury without any foundation for their playing being offered, since their playing spoke to no element required for conviction in the crime with which he was charged. And these tapes -- which were more prejudicial than probitive -- destroyed Scott Peterson's credibility to appear as a potential witness in his own defense. They served only to make the jury hate Scott Peterson.

Scott Peterson found himself at the center of a media circus, and his attempts to change his appearance and escape being followed can equally be interpreted as either avoidance of the media who were stalking him or avoidance of police who were tracking him.

The bodies of Laci Peterson and her unborn child were discovered in close proximity to the location where Scott Peterson said he had been fishing at the time of her disappearance. But those bodies were found after months of all-media publicity in which Petersons alibi was broadcast and published, and if Laci had been murdered by some third party, the murderer would have easily had both means and motive to dump her body at that location to convict Scott and end pursuit of themselves for that murder.

In any case where more than one explanation of a fact can be offered, the judges charge instructs the jury that the explanation suggesting innocence is the one they are legally required to adopt in their deliberations.

Scott Peterson was convicted at trial of murder possibly leading to a death sentence in which the trial judge allowed prosecutors to speculate in front of a jury on how Scott Peterson might have murdered his wife. Anyone whos watched a single episode of Perry Mason or Law & Order knows the judge is charged with forbidding such speculation unless there is a foundation of facts in evidence.

No such foundation was presented indicating a method of murder in the murder trial of Scott Peterson.

In other words, Scott Peterson looked and acted guilty, and in the age of 24-hour -a-day TV news networks that have to fill up those hours with ratings-producing subjects, Scott Petersons trial and conviction was the perfect storm of Guilty by Suspicion.

Scott Peterson may very well have been convicted of a murder that he committed. If so, he was convicted in a case that under our system of justice  in which the presumption of innocence may only rightfully be overcome by evidence that is convincing beyond a reasonable doubt  never should have been allowed into court, much less handed over to a jury.

The jury that convicted Scott Peterson was a lynch mob inflamed by prejudicial testimony and their conviction of Scott Peterson qualifies as a hate crime. The verdict needs to be overturned on appeal. The judge brought out of retirement to preside over the case needs to be retired again. The prosecution needs to be brought up on civil rights charges to make sure this behavior is punished.

May God have mercy on Scott Petersons soul if he is, in fact, a psychopath who spent Christmas Eve murdering his pregnant wife so he could avoid the inconvenience of a divorce.

And may God have equal mercy on the prosecutors, judge, and jurors who have taken away Scott Petersons life  whether through a sentence of life imprisonment or death by lethal injection  if they have allowed their disgust for a deeply flawed man to whip them into a passion in which suspicion in the absence of any proof was sufficient to convict him.

Speed, I beg to differ. What we are being asked to believe is that 1) Laci and Scott had an argument (about Amber)- 2) Scott left and went fishing by himself. 3) McKenzie the dog left and went for a walk by himself. 4) Laci (8 mos.pregnant) waited a few minutes and then walked 90 miles to the Bay, tied weights/anchors to her wrists and ankles and threw herself in the water.

This article proves you are neither lawyer or logistician. Most of us don't get our legal advice from watching old "Perry Mason" shows.

Your article on "Miracle Eye Drops that Cure Cataracts" demonstrates that you are neither physician nor practical. (Just a hint: Phacoemulsification and aspiration, the surgical procedure to emulsify then remove cataracts does not involve the retina nor its blood supply.)

I'm just wondering, as I wait with baited breath to read your "article" on Vulcan Mind Melds," will you soon be selling such Mind Melds on late night TV?

PS, Karl Hess was not the originator of Senator Goldwater's "Extremism...." line.

So far, you're 0 for 3.

53
posted on 11/30/2004 10:57:46 AM PST
by MindBender26
(Having your own XM177 E2 means never having to say you are sorry......)

Well, it's a sad commentary on human nature, but I once sat on a jury where the accused, a street punk, thought it was a good strategy to give the jury "Attitude" looks. After an hour, the jury lost patience, and began giving the looks back.

And so terrifying were the looks of the average citizens, homemakers, grandmothers, Joe Sixpacks, that the Accused panicked and plead "Guilty".

Little Blue-Haired old ladies wanted to take him out and string him up from the nearest lampost.

Maybe if Richardson had adopted a more humble or contrite attitude, things would have gone differently. Nobody wins anything by having the knack of making people hate them, and a trial is a particularly wrong place to do that.

It's such a coincidence that Scott visited the crime scene 5 times in the 2 weeks she went missing even though it was a 2 hour drive away. It's coincidence that when he was arrested he had his brother's passport, $10,000 in cash and died his hair blonde. It's coincidence that he tried to sell his wife's car just one week after she went missing...and tried to sell their home just weeks after she went missing. Give me a break!

If O.J. is innocent of murdering his wife and that other fellow, given that he abused his wife on a regular basis, then how can Peterson be convicted based on circumstantial evidence? The issue of race is good for one case and not the other?

I fear that I was turned off by the daily update process too many folks produced as justification for their presence on the air waves.

Consequently, I am not fully up to speed on the details. What little I have heard, despite my best attempts, however, supports this author's take on things. Your response completely misses the point. While he may not have cried and did not take the stand to wail and moan, there is no requirement for him to do either. It is the state's requirement to prove their case. Try countering the author's charge that almost every element of the crime was simply absent, unproven, or unprovable. Then, maybe you have a point.

Of course you're free to have an opinion without being held to "beyond a reasonable doubt." But the jury is not and based on this piece, they may have failed in their responsibility. It definitely wouldn't be the first time and inevitably won't be the last, but we should abhor it, instead of embracing it. Otherwise, any one of us may be the next to suffer for it.

Try countering the author's charge that almost every element of the crime was simply absent, unproven, or unprovable. Then, maybe you have a point.

Each piece of evidence may, by itself, not prove the murder. The thing is, the jury doesn't view each piece of evidence by itself. It views the totality of the evidence. So, the jury viewed that the woman washed up on shore with cinder block weights. The jury saw the same kind of cement in the boat. The jury saw that the dog was left outside. The jury saw that Scott had lots of motice (financial, romantic). The jury saw that Scott lied about his whereabout the next day. The jury saw that Scott did not remember what he had gone fishing for. The jury saw that he had freswater tackle on his fishing gear. The jury saw that he returned to the scene of the crime five times after her disappearence despite it being two hours away. The jury also saw that Scott talked about his wife in the past tense before her body was found.

Each piece of evidence, by itself, did not prove murder. Viewed in its totality, the evidence clearly proves murder.

76
posted on 11/30/2004 11:16:09 AM PST
by Rodney King
(No, we can't all just get along)

No, no, no! She was kidnapped and killed by some homeless people hanging out by the river (or maybe it was the satanists hanging out by the river). They kept her until they found out where Scott had been on the day they snatched Laci, then took her to the bay and dumped her. I guess the homeless people used a shopping cart and kept to the backroads to transport her body to the Berkeley marina. I think that the satanists had a tan van they could use.

Scott had a perfectly understandable motive for killing Laci rather than divorcing her--if he got a divorce he would still have to pay child support for their son for 18 years. His best legal strategy might have been a 14th-amendment defense (equal protection of the laws): he as the expectant father was not given the same rights to dispose of an inconvenient baby than any expectant mother would have.

It's pretty good evidence of an unnatural cause of death when you turn up 90 miles away from your home and wash up on shore several months later, with your head and limbs missing. I don't think she went fishing that day, and fell overboard. I also don't think she walked or hitchhiked to the Berkeley marina to commit suicide. Oh, hey! I know! She died a natural death at home, and person or persons unknown decided that a burial in the bay would be nice, so they transported her there.

There have been other cases where no body at all was found, and therefore no cause of death could be established, but a conviction in the case resulted based on, shockingly, circumstantial evidence.

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